Today, I am in a funk. I should be somewhere, but my current circumstance precludes my attendance. I belong to a krewe that converges on New Orleans, LA for The New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. This is no ordinary krewe, it started with four partying buddies and grew to include brother-in-laws, work buddies, spouses, siblings, children and buddies of buddies. Most years there are around twenty people. Many of us only see one another during the New Orleans pilgrimage. We revel in one another's company and the ambiance of New Orleans. Today begins the 23rd annual New Orleans rendezvous.

When my children were young, our whole family would make the pilgrimage every 3rd or 4th year. I have a 26 and 23 year old that have been to the Fest a handful of times and seen Ray Charles, Fats Domino, Gatemouth Brown, Santana, The Allman Brothers, Allen Tousaint, The Meters, Willie Nelson, Rosie Ledet, ... When the children left for college, and we went empty nest, Sweetie became an every year member of the krewe. Some of our fondest memories are the sights, sounds, flavors and camaraderie of the New Orleans trips. Among the krewe, the joke is that waiting for Jazzfest is like a little kid waiting for Christmas. Since Sweetie's ALS diagnosis, we have been unable to attend and have to make due with our memories.

So, let's get the funk out with some Rebirth Brass Band.

When we first started attending Jazzfest, the festival was managed by, The New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Foundation. The festival was smaller, cheaper and emphasized local musicians. Post Katrina, the foundation contracted AEG to operate the festival. Like much of the remainder of New Orleans, Jazzfest was negatively impacted by Katrina. AEG has booked big acts and marketed the festival, but also negatively altered the character of the festival.

The New Orleans pilgrimages allowed us to observe the impact of Katrina. Katrina combined with decades of poor governance and the Bush administration malfeasance permanently scarred our beloved NOLA.

Concentrated poverty in New Orleans 10 years after Katrina

The death and massive displacement that Hurricane Katrina and subsequent levee failures caused in New Orleans 10 years ago caused many Americans at the time to ask: How could this happen? How could so many vulnerable residents—especially low-income African Americans in poor health—be left behind in the devastation?

At the time, my colleague Bruce Katz and I suggested one contributing factor: “a long-standing policy of neglect toward the city’s most vulnerable residents, exemplified by their continued segregation into neighborhoods of high poverty.”

New Orleans After Katrina: Inequality Soars as Poor Continue to Be Left Behind in City's "Recovery"

Ten years after Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans has become a different city. The population of New Orleans is now approximately 385,000—about 80 percent of its pre-Katrina population. The number of African Americans has plunged by nearly 100,000 since the storm. According to the Urban League, the income gap between black and white residents has increased by 37 percent since 2005. In 2013, the median income for African-American households in New Orleans was $25,000, compared to over $60,000 for white households. Thousands of homes, many in African-American neighborhoods, remain abandoned. We speak to civil rights attorneys Tracie Washington of the Louisiana Justice Institute and Bill Quigley of Loyola University.

Scene Report: New Orleans Music and Activism 10 Years After Hurricane Katrina

There’s no single word that can sum up a complicated city like New Orleans. Even less, its horrifying, solemn, and troubled saga with Hurricane Katrina, the 10th anniversary of which was marked this past weekend.

"Recovery" was thrown around by national media outlets in the month leading up to the anniversary date: inadequate at best seeing as New Orleans is still down 22% from its pre-Katrina population, despite a big Census uptick earlier this year, the city’s first since 1960. So-called "recovery" has not been uniform. Poll numbers reflect dissatisfaction and disappointment from locals, the demographics of which have shifted by the thousands. Education, housing, wages, transportation, and so on have lagged behind for poor and black residents. "Resilient" and "resilience" were common tags heard locally during the weekend’s commemoration. On his Thursday visit to the area, President Barack Obama used it. Some locals, notably Louisiana Justice Institute President Tracie Washington among them, have resisted the "resilience" narrative.

‘Tremé Was Empty’: How Musicians Are Helping New Orleans Heal From Katrina

You may know about Tremé from David Simon’s HBO series about jazz musicians in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. You may know it as the first neighborhood of free African Americans in the U.S. Or you may know it as the colorful neighborhood — literally and figuratively — where New Orleans’ jazz culture was born.
No matter where you’ve heard about it, New Orleanians consider Tremé a multicultural epicenter of a city known for its rich musical heritage. Its famed Congo Square, now a large park, is where slaves once gathered to socialize, sell goods, and dance. It’s the site of funeral marches, parades, and infamous second lines. It’s home to the Mardi Gras Indians, who dance in the streets in beautiful, flamboyant costumes every year.
But on August 29, 2005, the beloved neighborhood was flooded like the rest of the city, and the vibrant neighborhood was left in shambles. The physical destruction caused by the storm was devastating, and the absence of musicians meant the pulse and soul of the city was gone. Ten years after the mass exodus, the music scene in Tremé and the rest of New Orleans is trying to find its footing.

Benny Jones, the creator and bandleader of the Treme Brass Band, was born in the vivacious community 72 years ago. Over the years, he’s carried on a longstanding brass band tradition, and the people of Tremé consider him and the band a cherished symbol of the community’s musical legacy.

Sitting in Club Soul, a tiny nightclub flanked by a highway on one side and small homes on the other, Jones listed the band’s many accomplishments with a permanent grin on his face.
“This band is a world famous band. We’ve been on documentaries, HBO, a bunch of jazz funerals and parades, conventions, private parties,” Jones, a drummer, told me emphatically. “We have a name for ourselves. Younger bands admire us for what we’re doing.”

And over the course of our talk before the nightclub opened to the public, Jones detailed how the band’s story represents the ups and downs of musicians during and after Hurricane Katrina hit — and where they stand 10 years later.

It Was New Orleans’ Musicians—Not Its Politicians—Who Saved the City Post-Katrina

As the media descend for the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans is a robust city with a booming $800 million film industry, a burgeoning digital economy, rising real estate values and a solid growth curve. The population is approaching 90 percent of the 457,000 people who lived there when the place nearly drowned on international television starting August 29, 2005.

Washington saved New Orleans with a financial lifeline, at least $19.5 billion from FEMA alone, as the New Orleans Advocate reports. The money came slowly in the early years, the spigot quickening in the five years since Mitch Landrieu became mayor. The Rockefeller Foundation contributed $6.5 million for citywide planning. Congress also allocated $9 billion to assist under-insured residential owners in the Road Home program, a grant process that became a byzantine scandal.

Private investment followed the flow of federal dollars. The business district is becoming an upscale residential neighborhood. The city’s rebirth shows in building projects, streets that are cleaner than at any time in living memory, a robust scene of music clubs, restaurants, and art galleries.
New Orleans is the American city with the deepest African identity. The shadow-story of the rebirth is the resilience of musicians, artists, and tradition-bearers who came back, against the odds, when it was a shattered mud town in fall 2005. Culture is the life force here, a powerful current of memory and rituals that proved vital to the city’s resurrection.

Let the Rebirth continue.